A large business typically has many vendors who supply the business with a variety of goods and services. For example, a business may have suppliers, trucking personnel, on-site maintenance workers and utility providers. As a result, the business may be required to initiate monthly, weekly or even daily vendor payments.
In order to pay the vendors, the business stores vendor account and routing information in a business database. The business then uses this data to pay its vendors. For example, a business may execute a vendor payment by transmitting to a financial institution the account and routing information of the vendors to be paid, in addition to payment amounts. The financial institution then pays the vendors based on the transmitted account and routing information.
This system is undesirable for both the business and the vendor. This system is undesirable for the vendor because storing sensitive vendor data in a business database leaves the data open to piracy and misappropriation. For example, business employees may access, with authorized permissions, or illegally, vendor data and use it to illegally initiate unauthorized withdrawals. This system is also undesirable for the business because business employees may tamper with the vendor data. For example, a business employee may change a vendor's routing number to his own personal routing number. This diverts payments away from the vendor and may, instead, direct the payments to the business employee's personal bank account.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide systems and methods for storing vendor data in a secure location, preferably inaccessible to business employees. It would be further desirable to provide systems and methods for a business to initiate vendor payments without combining sensitive data in a single location, such that the data cannot be tampered with by a single operator. It would be yet further desirable to provide systems and methods for transferring sensitive vendor data in a more efficient manner.